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When she and Miss Pole left us we endeavoured to subside into calmness; but Miss Matty was really upset by the intelligence she had heard.
当她和波尔小姐离开我们后，我们努力平静下来；但听到这个消息后，马蒂小姐真的心烦意乱。
She reckoned it up, and it was more than fifteen years since she had heard of any of her acquaintance going to be married, with the one exception of Miss Jessie Brown; and, as she said, it gave her quite a shock, and made her feel as if she could not think what would happen next.
她算了一下，自从她上一次听说她认识的人中有谁要结婚以来，已经有十五年多了，除了杰西·布朗小姐；而且正如她所说，这让她大吃一惊，让她觉得不知道接下来会发生什么。
I don’t know whether it is a fancy of mine, or a real fact, but I have noticed that, just after the announcement of an engagement in any set, the unmarried ladies in that set flutter out in an unusual gaiety and newness of dress, as much as to say, in a tacit and unconscious manner, “We also are spinsters.”
我不知道这是我的幻觉，还是真有其事，但我注意到，在任何一个社交圈子里，只要有人宣布订婚，这个圈子里的未婚女士们就会突然变得格外快乐，并穿上新衣，仿佛在以一种默契而又不自觉的方式说：“我们也还没结婚呢。”
Miss Matty and Miss Pole talked and thought more about bonnets, gowns, caps, and shawls, during the fortnight that succeeded this call, than I had known them do for years before.
在这次拜访后的两周里，马蒂小姐和波尔小姐对无边女帽、长袍、便帽和披肩的谈论和思考，比我以前知道的她们这么多年来所谈论和思考的还要多。
But it might be the spring weather, for it was a warm and pleasant March; and merinoes and beavers, and woollen materials of all sorts were but ungracious receptacles of the bright sun’s glancing rays.
但这也许是春天的原因，因为那是一个温暖宜人的三月；美利奴羊毛和海狸皮，以及各种羊毛制品，都不适合接受明亮阳光的照耀。
It had not been Lady Glenmire’s dress that had won Mr Hoggins’s heart, for she went about on her errands of kindness more shabby than ever.
格兰米尔夫人并不是靠衣着赢得了霍金斯先生的心，因为她在做善事时穿得比以往任何时候都更寒酸。
Although in the hurried glimpses I caught of her at church or elsewhere she appeared rather to shun meeting any of her friends, her face seemed to have almost something of the flush of youth in it; her lips looked redder and more trembling full than in their old compressed state, and her eyes dwelt on all things with a lingering light, as if she was learning to love Cranford and its belongings.
虽然我在教堂或其他地方匆匆瞥见她时，她似乎总是避开与任何朋友见面，但她的脸上几乎有了一些青春的红晕；她的嘴唇看起来比以前紧闭时更红、更饱满和微微颤动，她的眼睛注视所有事物时带着一种流连的目光，仿佛她正在学着去爱克兰福德和它的一切。
Mr Hoggins looked broad and radiant, and creaked up the middle aisle at church in a brand-new pair of top-boots—an audible, as well as visible, sign of his purposed change of state; for the tradition went, that the boots he had worn till now were the identical pair in which he first set out on his rounds in Cranford twenty-five years ago; only they had been new-pieced, high and low, top and bottom, heel and sole, black leather and brown leather, more times than any one could tell.
霍金斯先生看上去高大魁梧、容光焕发，他穿着一双崭新的长筒马靴，嘎吱嘎吱地沿着教堂的中间过道走来——人们可以听到，也可以看到，这是他即将改变身份的标志，因为据说，他之前一直穿的靴子就是他25年前第一次来克兰福德行医时穿的那双，只是那双靴子已经修补过很多次了，从高到低、从上到下、从靴跟到靴底、用黑色皮革和棕色皮革，修补的次数多得没人能数得清。
None of the ladies in Cranford chose to sanction the marriage by congratulating either of the parties.
克兰福德的女士们没有一个人选择通过祝贺他俩中的任何一个人来认可这桩婚姻。
We wished to ignore the whole affair until our liege lady, Mrs Jamieson, returned.
我们希望对整件事保持沉默，直到我们的领主——贾米森夫人——回来。
Till she came back to give us our cue, we felt that it would be better to consider the engagement in the same light as the Queen of Spain’s legs—facts which certainly existed, but the less said about the better.
在她回来给我们提示之前，我们觉得最好还是把这个婚约看作西班牙女王的腿——虽然是确实存在的事实，但还是少说为妙。
This restraint upon our tongues—for you see if we did not speak about it to any of the parties concerned, how could we get answers to the questions that we longed to ask?—was beginning to be irksome,
这种对语言上的约束——因为你看，如果我们不和两人中的任何一个人谈论这件事，我们怎么能得到渴望问他们的问题的答案呢？——开始变得令人厌烦，
and our idea of the dignity of silence was paling before our curiosity, when another direction was given to our thoughts, by an announcement on the part of the principal shopkeeper of Cranford, who ranged the trades from grocer and cheesemonger to man-milliner, as occasion required, that the spring fashions were arrived, and would be exhibited on the following Tuesday at his rooms in High Street.
我们对庄重地保持沉默的想法在好奇心面前逐渐褪色，这时我们的注意力被引向了另一个方向，克兰福德最主要的店主（他卖的货物从杂货到奶酪，再到男帽，根据需要，应有尽有）通知，春天的时装已经到货，并将于下周二在他位于高街的房间里展出。
Now Miss Matty had been only waiting for this before buying herself a new silk gown.
马蒂小姐就等着这个展出，然后给自己买一件新的丝绸长袍。
I had offered, it is true, to send to Drumble for patterns, but she had rejected my proposal, gently implying that she had not forgotten her disappointment about the sea-green turban.
我确实主动提议，派人去德拉姆布尔取些样式来，但她拒绝了我的提议，委婉地暗示她还没有忘记对那个海绿色头巾的失望。
I was thankful that I was on the spot now, to counteract the dazzling fascination of any yellow or scarlet silk.
我很庆幸我现在就在现场，可以让马蒂小姐打消任何黄色或猩红色丝绸对她的耀眼吸引力。
I must say a word or two here about myself.
我必须在这里说一两句话关于我自己事。
I have spoken of my father’s old friendship for the Jenkyns family; indeed, I am not sure if there was not some distant relationship.
我已经说过我父亲和詹金斯家是老交情了；实际上，我不确定他们之间是否有什么远亲关系。
He had willingly allowed me to remain all the winter at Cranford, in consideration of a letter which Miss Matty had written to him about the time of the panic, in which I suspect she had exaggerated my powers and my bravery as a defender of the house.
父亲很乐意让我整个冬天都留在克兰福德，考虑到马蒂小姐在恐慌时期给他写过一封信，我怀疑她在信中夸大了我作为房子保卫者的能力和勇气。
But now that the days were longer and more cheerful, he was beginning to urge the necessity of my return;
但现在白天更长了，也更令人愉快了，父亲开始催促我回去；
and I only delayed in a sort of odd forlorn hope that if I could obtain any clear information, I might make the account given by the signora of the Aga Jenkyns tally with that of “poor Peter,” his appearance and disappearance, which I had winnowed out of the conversation of Miss Pole and Mrs Forrester.
我只是因为怀着一种奇怪的、不大可能的希望而推迟回家，如果我能得到什么明确的信息，我就可能把塞缪尔夫人对阿迦·詹金斯的描述与“可怜的彼得”对应上，关于彼得的出现和消失，我从波尔小姐和福里斯特夫人的谈话中寻得了蛛丝马迹。
